In this episode of Translucent, host Lee Wade highlights TransOhio, a nonprofit working statewide to support the rights and visibility of trans and gender-diverse people.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Lee Wade: Across Ohio, policies targeting transgender people are changing fast, from health care to legal documents to how gender is even defined in state law. And while all of that is happening at the Statehouse, there are small, community-led organizations working in real-time to help people figure out what it means for them. One of them is TransOhio.
Adkison: We're not a large organization. I talk to folks every day that think that we're a large agency. And I'm like, we have had one and a half staff people for the past year. And before that, we were all volunteers. And it's really just a testament to how much hyper-focused and very committed trans people can accomplish.
Wade: That's Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio. It's a trans-led, statewide organization that's been around for over two decades, but it still operates more like a grassroot network than a large nonprofit. No big infrastructure, no massive staff, just a small group of people figuring out how to meet the needs of their community.
Adkison: I think what you're seeing in the last couple of years is we've really been meeting this moment by expanding a couple of things that we've always done. We've always some mutual aid. It used to be we'd help four or five people a month with emergency housing situations, abusive partners, that kind of thing. But scaling that, we're very close to $200,000 of mutual aid out in the past two years. Same for our legal services. Our name change clinic is a little over 10 years old, but in the last two years, we've scaled those services considerably and are very proud of just how many people we've helped with updating their legal documents.
Wade: TransOhio also runs legal clinics, helping people update their names and identity documents, something that can make a big difference in everyday life. But as those services expand, so does uncertainty about what comes next.
Adkison: There's so many things being proposed in other states that we have a lot of people terrified of that are targeted towards adults.
"The message of hope is that a few trans people can accomplish a ton. If I walk into any trans event in the state and I say, give me a show of hands who has been helped in some way by TransOhio, you're gonna get some hands."
We, of course, have our budget language floating out there from last year. Ohio did choose in our state budget of all things to change all the revised code to contain a binary sex definition. So different agencies can change their internal policies to reflect that if they choose. That wouldn't mean that every ID in Ohio could be invalidated without passing a new law. We would absolutely need a new for that if we were to go a Kansas route. But if the BMV wanted to stop us from updating our gender markers, they would only need to change their internal policies. And so that kind of thing is scary and just kind of floating out there. And so we've been working on lots of phrasing for the harm reduction and contingencies to communicate to the community if any number of bad situations with our IDs or health care transpire.
Wade: For a lot of people, that uncertainty is already showing up in real ways. And whether your ID matches who you are, whether you can access care, and how safe you feel just moving through the world. And while those questions are still up in the air, TransOhio is trying to make sure people aren't navigating them alone.
Adkison: The message of hope is that a few trans people can accomplish a ton. If I walk into any trans event in the state and I say, give me a show of hands who has been helped in some way by TransOhio, you're gonna get some hands. And that is a really cool place to be in for a small trans group. But it really is a staple to, if you think there's something the community needs, make it happen.
Wade: TransOhio is a small group, but their impact is already being felt across the state. Thank you TransOhio for the work that you do. I'm Lee Wade and thank you for listening to Translucent.
This story was produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO. Translucent is made possible with support from The Rubi Girls Foundation and Square One Salon.
